Tbilisi marks International Day Against Homophobia with a single rainbow flag

Queer rights activists abstained from holding a demon­stra­tion in Tbilisi for this year’s Inter­na­tion­al Day Against Homo­pho­bia, Trans­pho­bia, and Biphobia over safety concerns. Next month, Tbilisi is expected to host its first ever queer pride event.

After warnings from far-right groups that anti-homo­pho­bic demon­stra­tions would be met with violence, the Equality Movement, Women’s Ini­tia­tives Sup­port­ing Group, and other queer rights groups decided to limit them­selves to online campaigns only on Friday.

On 17 May hundreds of people, including priests, church­go­ers and far-right groups took to the streets to protest ‘sodomy’.

Some of them came out to celebrate Family Purity Day, a holiday created by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 2014, a year after thousands of people led by priests attacked several dozen queer rights demon­stra­tors in the city.

The rally was organised by the Georgian Orthodox Church, however, several days earlier, the Church issued a statement denounc­ing violence.

‘We’d like to remark that this is a peaceful event and has nothing to do with aggres­sion. It is a reflec­tion of our society’s support for tra­di­tion­al values. We will reiterate that the Church opposes all kinds of violence, whomever it comes from’, said a statement issued by the Church on 15 May.

LGBT flag on a bridge

Despite the decision by activists to abstain from a public demon­stra­tion, queer rights activist Nino Bolkvadze hung a rainbow flag over the central Baratashvili Bridge.

The day before, the Women's Ini­tia­tives Support Group (WISG) posted stickers through­out the city with QR codes that directed visitors to a website called ‘I am here’.

‘I am your son. And you don’t want to believe this. 60% of us lives with our families and at least 84.4% have expe­ri­enced domestic violence at least once. We are under permanent psy­cho­log­i­cal pressure’, says one of the many messages published on the website.

Several days earlier, WISG reported that their Facebook page had been blocked as well as links to their website posted on Facebook, allegedly after an organised campaign by anti-queer groups to report the page as abusive.

The Equality Movement had made plans to mark the day before even­tu­al­ly deciding not to campaign publicly.

The group had planned to put up pro-equality adver­tise­ments on the bill­boards, however, the adver­tis­ing company they had a contract with pulled out at the last moment.

‘Our lives are in danger. Because the gov­ern­ment won’t ensure our safety, we are forced to refuse our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to gather. With this poster, we are trying to make our voices heard: 17 May is the Inter­na­tion­al Day Against Homo­pho­bia and Trans­pho­bia. Rethink what happened on 17 May’, one of the posters the Equality Movement wanted to display read.

The US embassy to Georgia issued a statement noting that while some progress had been made, the ‘everyday reality for the LGBTQI+ community in Georgia is that these guar­an­tees largely remain on paper’.

‘We thus urge Georgian leaders to take resolute action to ensure that the equality guar­an­teed in law is realised in practice, so that every person in the country, including LGBTQI+ persons, can exercise their rights. In this context, we note that cultural, religious and moral beliefs — even if held by a majority — can never be an excuse for tol­er­at­ing human rights vio­la­tions’, the joint statement said, written on behalf of the United Nations Resident Coor­di­na­tor; the Ambas­sadors of the European Union (EU), Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Nether­lands, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom; the Head of Mission of the United States; and the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia.

The Public Defender of Georgia noted that it was unfor­tu­nate that ‘the rights situation of LGBT people has not changed sub­stan­tial­ly in the country’.

‘The influence of anti-gender groups and homo­pho­bia are still strong in society, which is why LGBT people suffer from oppres­sion, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and often become victims of violence. In addition, due to the homo­pho­bic and trans­pho­bic sen­ti­ments of a sig­nif­i­cant part of society, enjoyment of the right to education, work, health­care, and social pro­tec­tion remains a problem for LGBT+ persons’, said the statement.

It elab­o­rat­ed that measures taken by the state for the pro­tec­tion of LGBT+ people are inad­e­quate and cannot respond to real chal­lenges. It crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment for not having a systemic vision about how to improve the rights situation of LGBT people.

Prominent human rights groups united in the Coalition for Equality also crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment for not recog­nis­ing violence against queer people, which they said, ‘hinders the trans­for­ma­tion of the homo­pho­bic political and social envi­ron­ment’.

Moreover, they said, ‘by inef­fi­cient policies, the state indi­rect­ly supports violence and dis­crim­i­na­tion’.

How officials react on homophobia

In 2017, the Human Rights and Civil Inte­gra­tion Committee of Georgia’s Par­lia­ment pledged to mark Inter­na­tion­al Day Against Homo­pho­bia and Trans­pho­bia on every 17 May. The pledge was contained in the committee's 2017–2018 Action Plan, which was unveiled on 1 September by the head of the committee, Sopo Kiladze, alongside rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the EU del­e­ga­tion to Georgia and the United Nations Devel­op­ment Programme (UNDP).

However, in 2018, Liberali asked Kiladze several days prior to the date whether the committee intended to mark the day as they pledged, to which she said they would not because they did not want to. Since then, several demon­stra­tions were held in which queer activists and human rights organ­i­sa­tions demanded her res­ig­na­tion.

The police regularly issues state­ments prior to 17 May pledging safety guar­an­tees for pro­test­ers, and 2019 was no different.

Police on Family Purity demon­stra­tion. (Mari Nikuradze / OC Media)

On 16 May, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that ‘the ministry protects the freedom of expres­sion of people regard­less of their political and other views, gender, religious belonging, sexual ori­en­ta­tion, gender identity and other char­ac­ter­is­tics’.

However, the ministry failed to protect freedom of gathering and expres­sion of several dozen queer activists in 2013, when a homo­pho­bic mob led by priests attacked demon­stra­tors on 17 May. Despite numerous videos depicting the acts of violence, none of the attackers were held respon­si­ble.

The creation of a human rights depart­ment in the Interior Ministry in 2018 has been praised by several rights groups. According to the statement published on 17 May, in 2018, the number of people charged for the crimes committed based on dis­crim­i­na­tion tripled compared to the previous year.

‘In order to protect the interests of victims and witnesses, also to avoid re-vic­tim­i­sa­tion, the Victim/Witness Coor­di­na­tion Service was estab­lished. The coor­di­na­tor pri­ori­tis­es com­mu­ni­ca­tion with victims of crimes committed based on dis­crim­i­na­tion’, said a statement by the ministry.

Queer rights in Georgia

However, the Public Defender’s 2018 report said they had received numerous com­plaints regarding homo­pho­bic attitudes from law enforce­ment officials.

The report said that violence against queer people, whether in the family or in public spaces, was a serious problem, and that the gov­ern­ment had been unable to respond to this challenge.

‘In some cases, com­plainants withdrew cases and refused to cooperate with the general inspec­tion or the Prosecutor’s Office because they didn’t believe an inves­ti­ga­tion into their cases would be timely’, the report read.

A National Demo­c­ra­t­ic Institute poll from June 2018 suggested that only 23% of Georgia’s pop­u­la­tion think that pro­tect­ing the rights of queer people is important.

Queer people in Georgia are ‘com­plete­ly defence­less’ against domestic violence, a recent study conducted by the Georgian rights group Human Rights Education and Mon­i­tor­ing Centre (EMC) found. The study said this fre­quent­ly resulted in victims being forced to leave their homes and which impacted their education and careers, con­tribut­ing to home­less­ness.